Chancellor Changeover

White Hands University to Gearhart

Last updated Saturday, July 5, 2008 5:42 PM CDT in News

By Dan Craft
The Morning News

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Fast-forward a decade. After 11 years leading the school, White announced in January he would step down as chancellor and return to teaching in industrial engineering.

"I was finding in the last couple of years that I was kind of doing the same things that I'd been doing year in and year out," White said. "There wasn't a lot of newness, freshness. I wasn't coming up with new things to pursue."

Within a month, the Board of Trustees approved Gearhart as White's successor.

"There's not a better man in Arkansas or in the country to replace John White than Dave Gearhart," said Stanley Reed, immediate past chairman of the university system's board of trustees.

In the intervening decade, White and his team increased enrollment, raised admissions standards, replaced a longtime athletic director, set up a list of long-term goals and fought for more state financial support.

They also raised $1.046 billion in private support through the Gearhart-led Campaign for the 21st Century.

2010 And Beyond

White laid out a plan for the school with the help of a group of stakeholders known as the 2010 Commission. Ostensibly a promotional tool, the commission's reports helped track everything from graduation rates and student-faculty ratios to freshman grade point averages and transfers from other schools. Gearhart has a similar long-term set of goals, but plans to let the program run through its original 2010 expiration date.

"The bar was set very high, and there was some amazing progress," said Alan Sugg, president of the University of Arkansas System.

Something like the 2010 Commission is necessary for a growing university, Gearhart said.

"I may take a little different approach, but something similar is on the agenda," he said.

White's 2010 goal of 22,500 students isn't likely to happen, given the just more than 18,000 on campus in 2008. Gearhart hopes to reach between 21,000 and 22,000 within a few years.

"I believe it's critical to grow our student body, and I hope to put it on a little faster pace," Gearhart said.

Gearhart needs to continue the growth push, but realize that more students means finding money for more teachers, support staff, housing and other infrastructure, according to a former chancellor.

"Once you start the process of attracting a great student body, you can't turn back," said Dan Ferritor, who headed the university from 1986 to 1997. "The challenges Dave Gearhart faces are significant."

Question Of Dollars

Finding the money to grow the university is a question of looking in several different pots, Gearhart said.

State appropriations and tuition revenue were the major sources of university dollars for many decades, but increasing state funding levels was a task that confounded White to the point where he knelt down before a state legislative session to plead his case.

"I got down on my knees, and it did no good whatsoever," White said. "All it got was a laugh, and that wasn't the intention."

Increasing tuition, especially in the face of dwindling financial aid opportunities, can't bridge the gap, either, university officials knew.

"We'd always thought tax dollars were what would shoulder the load in funding the university," said Reed, the former trustee. "That's simply not enough any more."

One way to create more revenue was to build the school's endowment, which stood at $119 million in 1997.

"I told a group of vice chancellors we needed to move the decimal point over one place," White said. "We needed a tenfold increase. We needed a billion-dollar endowment."

Meeting the increase, however, meant putting together a fundraising program. That became Gearhart's project - the Campaign for the 21st Century. The plan: raise $1 billion in private support, emphasizing increasing the endowment as a major goal.

When White first proposed the $1 billion goal, "I couldn't get anybody to think I was anything other than crazy," he said. "I just hoped we'd be able to get there. The thing that turned it big-time, of course, was the Walton's $300 million gift."

The Walton gift was the largest ever given to a public university. It was especially generous in that it was presented as a matching challenge gift, where each dollar had to be matched by other donors, effectively doubling the contribution, White said.

The Waltons' insistence that those who matched the gift would get naming rights also helped fuel donations, he said.

The last pledges from the Campaign for the 21st Century will be paid off in 2010, and planning will begin soon after for another capital push, Gearhart said.

"It's going to be a cyclical thing, every decade or 15 years," he said. "I'm glad we timed our campaign when we did, because times are tough right now."

The campaign and its effects will change the university fundamentally, White said. Building the endowment, which uses only the interest accrued from investing the donated money, will keep building the school's strengths, he said.

"It's not going to have a long-lasting impact. It will have a forevermore impact on the University of Arkansas and the state," White said.

Moving On

Knowing he wouldn't stay through another campaign, the wrap-up of the 21st Century effort was one sign White saw that he should consider stepping aside. One other place White wanted to make a mark, however, was in helping replace a man far better known than himself on campus, throughout the state and around the country: longtime men's athletic director Frank Broyles.

"I really wanted to step down sooner, but I was determined to stay until I had he opportunity to select Coach Broyles' successor. I grew up in Arkansas before Frank Broyles came, and I know what he's done for this state. He's a treasure," White said. "I didn't think he would be stepping down as soon as he did. I figured he'd be here another two or three years, and so I would be too. I told Dr. Sugg last summer, if I had had Coach Broyles' successor named, I wouldn't have been back this year."

White and Broyles aren't the only ones moving on, though. Gearhart has several holes to fill in his administrative team.

Gearhart recommended Brad Choate, a former colleague in his Penn State days, as his replacement for vice chancellor for university advancement. Bob Smith is stepping down from the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs after 12 years, and Bob McMath, dean of the honors college, is filling Smith's spot on an interim basis. That puts associate dean Suzanne McCray temporarily in charge of the honors college.

Don Bobbitt, dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, left for Texas, putting Bill Schwab in charge for now. Greg Weidemann, dean of the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, left for Connecticut, with Lalit Verma filling in as the agriculture dean.

Jeff Long replaces Broyles, assuming a new vice chancellor position, which was combined from the men's and women's athletic director slots. Women's athletics director Bev Lewis becomes an associate vice chancellor reporting to Long.

Gearhart said the provost position needs to be filled first.

"It's hard to recruit a dean when they know the provost is an interim," Gearhart said.

He hopes to have a provost hired within a year, then concentrate on finding permanent deans.

White offered one piece of advice in recruiting, whether for administrators, faculty or students.

"We still have to overcome misconceptions with some people about coming to Arkansas, depending on where they grew up and what their view of Arkansas is," White said. "Generally, if we can get people here, if we can get them to come see us and where we're located, then half the selling job is done, because they quickly fall in love with Fayetteville."

Gearhart will enjoy one advantage that White did not have, said Ferritor, the former chancellor.

"He's already here. He has the scorecard, and he knows the players," Ferritor said. "I had the same advantage when I became chancellor, but John (White) came in basically cold when he came over from Georgia Tech."

Razorback Green

One idea John White intended to bring with him from Georgia was the idea of "sustainability," a series of conservation measures that helps lessen the university's impact on the environment.

Then everything else got in the way. It wasn't until Wal-Mart executives approached in 2006 to ask about partnering with the school on sustainability efforts that the issue popped back onto White's radar.

"I came here and got so caught up dealing with the here and now, the challenges I faced, that I just totally forgot about sustainability," White said. "I just kick myself that I didn't start articulating that as soon as I came here."

Since then, various aspects of the concept have been promoted on campus, by city leaders and local businesses. Gearhart hopes to continue on that track, positioning the university as a leader in the field.

"We could be at the forefront academically," Gearhart said. "With our work in nanotechnology and biotechnology, this is something where we need to be at the cutting edge."

Future Challenges

Gearhart sees the future of the university smack-dab in the center of the school's "Nationally competitive, student-centered research university serving Arkansas and the world" vision statement.

Gearhart's catchword is "student-centeredness," the idea that the university revolves around the students.

"We can be more student-friendly. The students are in a sense academic partners with us," Gearhart said. "We only exist because of our students. Our obligation to the people of Arkansas is to graduate those students, and we need to do everything we can to ensure that the students are successful."

That means reviewing everything from the admissions process to the procedures to signing up for online classes.

"We've got a sort of labyrinth of rules and regulations. Some of them we need to take a look at why they're there," Gearhart said.

White's changes to admissions standards helped increase the quality of the student body, but in order to keep growing the university must look at less-traditional approaches to attracting students, Gearhart said. Seeking out older, nontraditional students, expanding distance-learning programs and recruiting from other states, especially Texas, are part of his growth plan.

"It's not just going to be 18 to 21-year-olds from Arkansas," he said. "We've got to reach out more."

Those moves should help not only grow the university, but improve life in Arkansas, Gearhart said, noting the current 50th-place ranking for adults with college degrees.

"That's a major problem for the state, and we're in the position to change that," he said.

Also on Gearhart's agenda is the possible purchase of the Fayetteville High School campus, a 40-acre tract adjacent to the southeast corner of campus. A $50 million offer, approved by the Board of Trustees, has been sidelined by a competing $60 million offer from a private development group.

Fayetteville school officials have been considering whether to sell the site and build a new high school in another location or stay and expand. They had asked $59 million for the property. The university was considered the only potential buyer until the development group came forward in late June.

School board members signed 90-day option with the development company, meaning the university's offer cannot be considered again until at least mid-September.

"It would be for the future if we do purchase it. It's not something we could make complete use of right away," Gearhart said. The university would need to spend an estimated $10 million to modify the buildings for collegiate uses.

Professor White

While White is stepping down from his administrative post, he's not leaving campus. "308 Engineering Hall," his new office as an industrial engineering professor, has become a favorite quip lately.

He's taking the fall semester off to spend time with grandkids and finish a book (or five), including a textbook he'll teach out of beginning next spring.

"What keeps my battery charged is being around students," White said. "I am far more concerned about, and can identify better with, the average student than the sort of star student. I get greater satisfaction in my own teaching dealing with the student who's struggling, because that's the kind of student I was."

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